


Endless Summer, Chapter 2/44 - We've all got secrets

by 9k4



Series: The Endless Summer Story [2]
Category: Endless Summer (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, M/M, The Endless Summer Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-09
Packaged: 2019-05-20 04:07:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14887334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9k4/pseuds/9k4





	Endless Summer, Chapter 2/44 - We've all got secrets

_“Hello?”_ Michelle yelled, banging on the reception bell. What she thought that would accomplish, with the hotel deserted, I’m not sure.

Sean stood there open-mouthed, looking around the empty lobby.

“This’ll make for one weird yelp review.” he managed.

“The hotels staff knew we were coming this week, right?” asked Grace, sadly. “This is  _not_ good.”

“I’m with Grace on this one.” I told the group. “Something like this doesn’t  _just_ happen. We should split up and investigate.”

“Thanks for backing me up, Taylor.” said Grace, smiling. I smiled back, letting her know she had my support.

“You know what I don’t understand?” said Craig. “I don’t have any service on my phone. Do you, Zahra? Raj?”

He had turned to face the female student with maroon streaks and the male student with the cranberry T-shirt. Both checked their phones, then shook their heads.

“Maybe they don’t have towers here.” Craig suggested.

“Of course there are cell phone towers here, you complete, utter  _simpleton.”_ Aleister insulted him.

“And how would  _you_ know that?” Zahra challenged him.

“Well, of course I… uh, I…” Aleister started, flustered, but quickly composed himself. “Maybe because I’mnot a complete imbecile?!”

“What matters more is finding answers.” I told the group. “Lila, do you know-”

I stopped when I realised Lila wasn’t with us.

“Have any of you seen Lila?” I asked the group.

They shook their heads.

We left The Celestial through the front door and found Lila, pacing nervously and talking to herself.

“Where could they be? They’re all gone,  _all gone…_ what would Everett say if he knew Lila had-” she stopped when she heard us approach. She shook off her melancholy.

“Hey everyone! I’m sure this is  _nothing_ to worry about!” Lila told us with her cheery facade. “Maybe the hotel guests are all… having a picnic on the beach!”

“Yeah.” Jake scoffed, falling into his sarcastic manner once more. “Or maybe the care bears came and took everyone to Happy-Happy Land!”

 _“Jake.”_  Sean glared at him. “That’s not helping.”

“What’s not helping is just standing here, not getting any answers, doing  _nothing.”_ Jake retorted.

“Well, in order to get some answers, we need leadership. And it doesn’t look like you’re up to the task.” Sean challenged him.

Jake met the challenge, balling his fists. “YOU THROW A  _BALL_ AROUND AND  _YOU_ THINK  _THAT_ QUALIFIES  _YOU_ TO TALK TO  _ME_ ABOUT  _LEADERSHIP?!”_ he shouted.

They stepped towards each other, getting in each others faces, Sean having a slight height advantage. Before the situation could get uglier, I got between them and forcefully pushed them apart.

“Taylor-” Sean started.

“Captain America here’s trying to-” Jake protested.

“I don’t want to hear it. Both of you, stop puffing your chests.” I told them off. “The only thing getting us nowhere is this macho standoff. Put your petty squabble aside, and put your heads together, to help us make whatever sense we  _can_ of this.”

Sean and Jake looked at each other… then reluctantly shook hands.

“Better?” I asked them.

“Yeah, better.” Sean replied.

“Whatever.” Jake muttered, but got serious when he saw the look I was giving him.

“We’re good.” he quickly said.

“Great.” Diego spoke up. “Now we have the power of friendship. What do we do now, Taylor?”

Everyone turned to me for advice, even Lila, which I thought was odd, given she was the tour guide, and should probably be in charge here.

“Me? Well… as I said in the lobby, we should split into groups of 3-4 and investigate the different parts of the hotel.” I eventually said.

“Good idea, Taylor!” said Grace. “I’ll search the pool.”

“The pool actually sounds great.” Jake decided. “I’ll go with brain trust.”

“Craig, if things were normal right now, where would  _we_ be?” Raj asked him.

“Uh… the restaurant, stuffing our faces?” answered Craig.

“Exactly!” Raj replied. “We’ll search the restaurant.”

“Where do  _you_ want to look, Zahra?” Lila asked her.

Zahra shrugged. “Don’t care.”

“Well then…” said Lila, stunned, as Zahra’s gloominess contrasted her cheeriness. “How about we check out the ballroom?”

“Still don’t care.”

“I’ll go with you two.” I decided. As the tour guide, Lila (hopefully!) knew what she was doing, and I certainly wasn’t going to eat, or swim, at a time like this.

As we split off into our various groups, I noticed something - the female student in the blue hoodie had disappeared too. Who was she? Did she know something about the hotel guests? If so, what? And  _how?_

Anyway, Lila, Zahra, Quinn (who had decided to join us) and I went to the ballroom. It was set up for a wedding, but there was one important thing that was missing.

“There’s no-one here.” I pointed out.

“Wow.” said Zahra, acerbically. “We can all relax, people, ‘cause Taylor’s here to point out the obvious.”

“You like being the jerk?” I asked her as nicely as I could.

“…you’re two for two.”

“What happened here?” Lila asked herself. “Everything’s set up for a wedding. What happened here, Lila?”

“Maybe the bride realised that marriage is a joke and hightailed it out of here?” Zahra suggested.

“Marriage? A joke?” Lila stepped back from Zahra. This time, she couldn’t hide how stunned she was.

“Personally, I have nothing against marriage  _itself,_  but I don’t see the point in big, fancy ceremonies. As long as you’re with your soulmate, who cares?” I commented, earning a bright smile from Quinn.

“You really believe that?” she asked me.

“Shouldn’t everyone?” I replied, earning a derisive snort from Zahra.

“I originally thought you were just a captive of the marital-industrial complex, but you’re even  _more_ of a sap than I thought. You believe in  _soulmates.”_  I might’ve taken offence from Zahra’s comment, but I knew she didn’t mean it personally. She was a jerk to everyone. It was her nature.

She walked up to a wine bottle and her eyes widened.

“Hey, Lila… why does this place have wine from  _1921?!”_  she asked.

“Wait,  _what!?”_ said Lila, shocked, but I was sure she knew more than she was letting on.

“Well, this wine may be ancient, but that ain’t stopping me.” said Zahra, popping open the bottle and filling some wine glasses.

“Zahra! That wine doesn’t belong to us!” Lila and Quinn protested. But I took a glass and drank with Zahra - it  _was_ still a holiday, and all expenses were paid off. Besides, it wasn’t like anyone was here who would need the wine.

After a further investigation of the ballroom, in which we found nothing, we met the other two groups back in the lobby.

“In the restaurant, we saw something on the volcano!” said Craig. “It was, like,  _there,_ and then…  _not.”_

“At the pool, Grace was nice to Aleister and he totally freaked out!” Diego added, laughing.

I noticed that Aleister wasn’t with the group. He was at the other end of the lobby, staring at a man’s picture. As I approached Aleister, I recognised the man from my dream - he was the man in the grey suit, and his taunt still haunted me. “You don’t understand yet… do you? Of course not. But you will…  _in time.”_

“Aleister, who is that?” I asked.

Aleister jumped a little, surprised by my sudden appearance, but answered me calmly.

“That’s Everett Rourke. The owner of Rourke International, and the man who built this hotel.” he explained.

I thought I’d heard his name before, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Aleister turned to leave, when he bumped into Grace.

“Oh!” she gasped, startled.

“Grace, I, uh…” Aleister started, but then tightened his face. “Watch where you’re going.”

As he left, I noticed Grace looking despondent.

“Can I… talk to you, Taylor?” she asked, almost a whisper.

“Of course. If it’s about Aleister, though, don’t take it personally-” I started, but she shook her head, hard.

“It’s not that, Taylor. I found something, and you, you just… seem to be a person I can trust.” she admitted.

“If you have a secret, Grace, I hope you know it’s alright to keep it. I trust you.” I consoled her.

“You do?!” she said, shocked.

“Of course. I trust you’ll make the right decision, and when you’re ready, you’ll share.”

Grace hesitated… then pulled something out of her orange sweater. It was a long, sharp tooth. One that looked prehistoric, as if it were a dinosaur fossil.

“I found this at the pool.” she told me. “I don’t know what to make of it. Do you think we should tell the group? See what they think?”

I agreed, and we went back to the group. They stared at the tooth with fascination.

 _“Woah.”_  said Jake. “There’s  _no_ waythat’s normal. No animal today has teeth like that. It must be some kind of fossil.”

“We need to focus on the  _real_ problem guys.” said Sean. “We haven’t found out what happened to the hotel guests. And we  _need_ to find them.”

We heard someone come in through the front door. I turned and saw the female student in the blue hoodie enter the hotel, looking slightly disappointed.

“Oh - you’re back!” I said, unsure what to make of her sudden reappearance.

She ignored me and grabbed a hotel key from behind the desk.

 _“Estela!”_  said Lila. “There you are! Where have you been?”

“Lookin’ around. Trying to make sense of things.” she replied.

“Did you find anything?” Michelle asked her.

Estela shook her head. “Nothing that matters to  _you.”_

“Shouldn’t  _we_ be the ones to decide what matters to us?” I asked her, and she finally looked at me, as if she had just noticed I was there.

“We’ve all got secrets.” she told me, somewhat hesitantly, before taking off, going to her room.

“Well… now that Estela’s taken hers, I guess I should all give you your room keys!” Lila decided.

After getting my room key, I went up to my room, and unpacked, still trying to work out what could have happened to the hotel guests. Half an hour later, I heard a knock on the door. It was Diego.

“Man…  _what a day!”_  he exclaimed, throwing himself onto my bed.

“Definitely.” I agreed.

“You know, Taylor…” Diego pondered. “I’ve always wanted an adventure, and maybe, just maybe, the universe is finally listening to me.”

He then shook his head, laughing slightly.

“But with my luck, this is the universe’s way of taunting me, before I go back to university and get bullied again.”

“You know what, Diego?” I said. “I think sometimes you need to findthe adventure in the life you’re given.”

Diego laughed. “And you say  _I’m_ the ridiculous one.”

“Anyway, we’re throwing a party by the pool. I wanted to see if you’d tag along?” he asked me.

“A party sounds great!” I said. “Let’s go!”

When we got to the pool, Craig and Zahra approached me.

“Hey, Taylor! So great of you to join us!” cheered Craig.

“Yeah. Maybe you  _don’t_ completelysuck.” Zahra admitted.

I ignored her and made my way to the bar, where Jake was serving drinks. He smiled as I approached.

“What can I get you, boy scout? And order something unconventional,  _please.”_ he practically begged me. “Everyone’s ordering the same old stuff and it’s  _boring.”_

I tried to think of the most unconventional drink I could ask Jake to make, when I suddenly had an idea.

“An unconventional drink, Maverick?” I rhetorically asked him. Jake smiled as he heard me use my nickname for him. “Make a new drink inspired by me!”

“Inspired by you, huh…” mused Jake. After mixing some ingredients and drinks I’d never even heard of before, he slammed down a drink in front of me.

“It’s a little bit of everything.” he explained. “Salty and sweet, tangy and bitter, dry and fruity. It doesn’t know what it wants to be yet… but I think it has the potential to be anything it wants to.”

“Woah, that’s…” I stuttered, taken aback by how much thought  _Jake_ of all people had put into it. “…surprisingly thoughtful, actually.”

“You had to go and say surprisingly, huh?” Jake retorted, sharply, but I could tell he was joking. “Can’t I be  _typically_  thoughtful?”

“No.” I jokingly replied. “But thanks for the drink, Maverick.”

He nodded as I decided to find Diego, taking one of Raj’s kebabs on the way, and it was the best kebab I had ever eaten. Raj seemed to take pride as I ate it, as if cooking for people was all he cared about.

I found Diego lounging by the pool, alone. I was smiling, which he reciprocated.

“You look happy.” he observed.

“I’m looking forward to get to know everyone.” I replied.

“You’ve caught some eyes, you know.” Diego pointed at the nearby cliff. Estela sat there, her legs dangling off the edge, watching the party. She met my gaze and, again, looked away.

“You know, Diego… I’m gonna go talk to her.” I decided.

Diego gave me his signature smirk as I grabbed a blanket, figuring Estela must be cold up on the cliff, and made my way to her.

When I made it to the top of the cliff, Estela turned to face me.

“What is it?” she asked me, probably a little rougher than she meant, but it made me realise that she didn’t want company.

“I just thought you might want some company.” I answered, to which she involuntarily blushed.

“…oh.” She managed.

“Sorry to have bothered you.” I started to leave.

“No… stay.” she patted the ground next to her. Her soft brown eyes reflected the stars overhead.

“Thanks.” I told her. “I’m Taylor, by the way.”

As I sat down next to her, I offered her the blanket.

“I brought this, in case you were cold.”

She recoiled instinctively.

“Why?” she asked, genuinely confused. I frowned.

“I don’t know. To be nice?”

Estela reluctantly took the blanket, wrapping it around her.

“Thanks.” she said, before turning to face me.

“Where I come from, people don’t do things for you without expecting something in return.” she said, as if it explained being suspicious of someone offering you a blanket.

“Well, maybe some people want nothing more but to be liked or respected in return.” I told her.

“It’s pathetic, isn’t it? How lonely humans all are…” she mused, before breaking into a smile, the first one of hers I’d seen. “But at least  _you’re_  honest about it.”

That’s when she noticed I was shivering slightly. She scooted close to me, took one half of the blanket and wrapped it around me. We huddled underneath it.

“That was nice of you.” I complimented her, to which she smiled rather sweetly.

We lay there in silence, watching the stars. A few seconds later, she abruptly stood up.

“I have to go, Taylor.” she said. “The people in my life often end up getting hurt…  _really_  badly. And I don’t mean their feelings.”

“Estela-” I tried to dissuade her, but her mind was made up.

“You seem like a nice person, and… I don’t want that to happen to you.”

With that, she disappeared, making her way back to the hotel.

Confused, but figuring there’d be no point in staying at the cliffside all by myself, I started to make my way back to the pool, when I saw some eyes appear suddenly in the bushes. There was a predator!

“Guys!” I yelled, too panicked at the time to realise that this could anger the predator.

The predator, however, took off. I turned to see Sean and Jake running towards me.

“Taylor!” Sean gasped, slightly breathless after sprinting to my rescue.

“Is everything okay? What is it?” Jake asked me.

“I… have no idea.” I admitted.

But the one thing  _I_  did know, even then, is that we had to leave La Huerta, and as far as I was concerned, the sooner, the better.

As far as everyone else was concerned, though, I was simply paranoid. No-one except for Sean and Quinn believed me when I told them I saw a predator, but this revelation still lowered the mood, and quickly caused everyone to stop the party and return to their rooms.


End file.
